Al-Qa’ida militants shot dead a man in southeastern Yemen on Thursday for allegedly acting as a spy for the United States.

Residents said the man was found
shot dead and his body chained to goal posts on a sandy football pitch in the
town of Shahr in Hadramout province.

He had allegedly been giving
the United States information used to carry out drone strikes against
militants, witnesses and the SITE monitoring service said

Pictures posted online showed
his body, dressed in Yemeni traditional clothes hanging by its arms from a bar
suspended from a football goal, on which a black al-Qa’ida flag also hung. A
crowd of onlookers stood nearby.

The man was captured a year
ago and accused of working for American intelligence and helping to guide drone
strikes in 2012 and 2013, SITE reported.

SITE said he had been
killed by al-Qa’ida's Ansar al-Sharia group.

In a video titled "An
American Spy in the Arabian Peninsula" posted online, a man
identifying himself as Amin Abdullah Mohammed al-Mu'alimi confessed to
assisting US intelligence.

He said he had been born in
the Yemeni
capital, Sanaa, but recruited in Sweden, and joined a security training course
led by a Saudi intelligence officer.

Yemen, which shares a long border with top oil
producer Saudi Arabia and receives military support from Washington, has been racked by lawlessness and violence since 2011, when mass
protests forced Ali
Abdullah Saleh to step down as president.

The United States has stepped up drone strikes as
part of a campaign against al-Qa’ida.

Yemen is among a handful of
countries where the United States acknowledges using drones, although it does
not comment on the practice.